IAB exchanges with ISO's SC6

[Lyman Chapin <[e-mail]>]

The ISO working groups that deal with lower-layer standards met in
London last week.  Yesterday Ran Atkinson forwarded a note from Tony
Whyman (who was a member of the UK delegation to the working group
that deals with Network layer issues, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6/WG2) which
comments on SC6's desire for "collaboration with the Internet community"
in the development of "future network technologies", with a heavy
emphasis on the IETF's TUBA work on running CLNP in the Internet.

Tony's observations followed WG2's discussion on Thursday of how
to interact with the Internet community - in particular, how to
promote the use of CLNP and its associated routing protocols in 
the Internet.  (WG2 held a similar discussion last summer at the
SC6 meeting in San Diego, which resulted in a liaison contribution
from SC6 to the IAB that said - in many more words than this! - that
SC6 was eager to make whatever changes to CLNP might be necessary
to facilitate its use in the Internet.)  Tony's note captures, in
some detail, the perspective of the SC6 community, which is (not
surprisingly) heavily weighted in favor of ISO standards such as
CLNP.

I made an effort last week to direct the energies of the SC6 parti-
cipants away from "promotion" of CLNP (explaining, for example,
that liaison contributions "strongly supporting the use of CLNP
in the Internet", with no technical substance, were not likely to
impress anyone in the Internet world) and towards participation in
the IETF.  Most of the people at the London meeting had no idea how
to go about using electronic mail to participate in IETF WGs (although
most of them do have e-mail and, in many cases, FTP/Telnet access
to the Internet).  I spent about an hour describing how to join
and contribute to WG mailing lists (with special emphasis on the
importance of the "-request" convention...) and how to find things
in anonymous ftp archives, and specifically directed people interested
in the "next generation IP" discussions to the "sip", "tuba", "pip",
 "criteria", and "big-internet" lists.  (Apologies to Nimrod and
Ullman's IPv7, and any other work I neglected to mention - I put
on the whiteboard only the e-mail addresses, RFC numbers, and internet
draft names that I was sure were accurate.  I'm expected to follow up
with a distribution to SC6 of a package of "explaining the Internet
and the IETF" material, so let me know if you feel strongly about
something that should be included.)

One result of this discussion was recognition of the importance of
pursuing "collaboration" or "liaison" not by means of formal "we'd
really like you to do X" letters to the IAB (or any other Internet
body), but by (a) participation in the technical work, and (b) much
better communication between the "ISO world" and the "Internet world".
The SC6 chairman has been instructed to ask ISO to specifically release
a list of about 25 Transport and Network layer ISO standards for on-
line distribution at no charge and with no copyright restrictions,
and it is virtually certain that ISO will agree.

Included below are the IAB's contribution to the London meeting,
and the SC6 response (which enables me to publish the final draft
text of the new second edition of ISO/IEC 8473-1 (CLNP) as an RFC).

I'd be glad to hear from anyone who has comments on the way in
which the IAB has been dealing with ISO.  The IAB's objective is
to promote better communication and awareness across the cultural
and technical gulf that separates the ISO/CCITT and Internet
communities, not because we think that the future of the Internet
depends on everyone being part of "one happy family", but because
good technical work has resulted from collaboration in those
areas - such as internetwork routing - in which there have been
relatively few communication and participation barriers.  I'd like
to know whether or not IETFers agree with this objective.

- Lyman


ATTACHMENTS


1.  Liaison contribution from SC6 to the IAB, 1992-07-21:

*****************************************************************************

Title:            Liaison Contribution to the Internet Architecture Board
                  (IAB) Concerning Future Work on ISO/IEC 8473 (CLNP) and
                  Network Layer Addressing

Source:           ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 (Telecommunications and Information
                  Exchange Between Systems)

Project(s):       JTC1.06.32.04 and JTC1.06.32.01.02

Attachment(s):    ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/N 7749, "Protocol for Providing the
                  Connectionless-mode Network Service" (ISO/IEC 8473-1992,
                  second edition)

                  ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/N 7558, "Network Service Definition"
                  (ISO/IEC 8348-1992, second edition)


During its meeting in San Diego on 13-24 July 1992, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6
received and reviewed a report of current activities within 
the purview of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and its 
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) concerning the way in which 
the OSI standard internetwork protocol (ISO/IEC 8473, also 
referred to as "CLNP") and the corresponding OSI standard Network 
layer addressing scheme (ISO/IEC 8348 Addendum 2, also referred to 
as "NSAPs") might be used within the Internet.  Recognizing the 
importance of the Internet to its National Body constituents, and 
therefore the importance of the IAB and IETF activities with 
respect to these OSI standards,  and considering the desire and 
intention of JTC1 to establish an effective liaison relationship 
with the Internet Society through the IAB, SC6 wishes to convey 
the following information to the IAB, and would welcome 
suggestions from the IAB of areas in which it believes that active 
liaison with SC6 would be beneficial.

1.  SC6 is aware of and interested in the IAB's work on routing 
    and addressing in the Internet, and on the incorporation of 
    ISO/IEC 8473 (CLNP) into the Internet as part of a multiprotocol 
    Internet architecture.

2.  SC6 is also aware of the possibility that the opportunity 
    might arise, during the course of this work, for SC6 to take 
    actions that would facilitate it.

3.  SC6 would, in such a circumstance, be prepared to work 
    constructively with the IAB, in a timely fashion, to facilitate 
    its work, and in particular is willing to seriously consider any 
    proposal from the IAB for additions or amendments to the relevant 
    ISO/IEC standards that might be required to permit the effective 
    application of those standards in the Internet environment.

*****************************************************************************

2.  Liaison contribution from the IAB back to SC6, 1993-02-01:


To:     ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 (Data Communications)

From:   Internet Architecture Board

Date:   1 February, 1993

Re:     SC6/N7584, Liaison contribution to the Internet 
        Architecture Board (IAB) concerning future work on ISO/IEC 
        8473 and Network layer addressing


The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) was pleased to receive the 
liaison contribution contained in SC6/N7584, and has circulated 
the contribution and its attachment (SC6/N7749) to the members of 
the Internet standards community.

The group most directly involved with the application of CLNP 
(ISO/IEC 8473) in the Internet is the Internet Engineering Task 
Force (IETF) Working Group "TUBA" ("TCP/UDP over CLNP-addressed 
Networks"), which has published a draft specification of the way 
in which CLNP can be used to perform the internetwork protocol 
functions of the Network layer in the context of the traditional 
TCP/IP protocol suite (as a direct replacement for the current 
Internet Protocol (IP)).  The charter of the TUBA working group, 
and the draft specification "Use of ISO CLNP in TUBA 
Environments", are included as attachments to this liaison 
contribution.

The Internet Architecture Board recognizes and appreciates the 
willingness of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 to consider recommendations from 
the IAB for enhancements to the CLNP standard that would 
facilitate its application in the Internet, and expects that the 
results of the TUBA working groups analysis of the way in which 
CLNP behaves in actual deployment within the Internet will be 
received as a useful contribution to the work of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 
on the CLNP standard.


Lyman Chapin
IAB Chairman


Attachments:	(1)  TUBA working group charter.

                (2)  "Use of ISO CLNP in TUBA Environments" (an 
                     Internet Draft, <draft-ietf-tuba-clnp-02.txt>).

*****************************************************************************

3.  Liaison contribution from SC6 to the IAB, 1993-02-12:

1993-02-12

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6
TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION
EXCHANGE BETWEEN SYSTEMS

Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI)


Title:          Liaison Contribution to the Internet Architecture
                Board (IAB) Concerning Future Work on ISO/IEC 8473

Source:         SC6

Project(s):     JTC 1.06.32.04

Status:

Requested Action:

Attachment(s):  ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/N 7964, "Protocol 
                for Providing the Connectionless-mode Network 
                Service", Part 1:  Protocol Specification  
                (ISO/IEC 8473-1, second edition)

Distribution:


The revised second edition text for ISO/IEC 8473-1, which has been 
forwarded to ITTF for ballot and to CCITT SG VII for consideration 
as the basis for an identical CCITT Recommendation (X.233), is 
attached for your information, in the context of your work on the 
application of the Connectionless Network Layer Protocol (CLNP) in 
the Internet.

*****************************************************************************